Читать книгу The Rising Son; or, the Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race - William Wells Brown - Страница 14

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The various colors seen in the natives in Africa, where amalgamation with other races is impossible, has drawn forth much criticism, and puzzled the ethnologist not a little. Yet nothing is more easily accounted for than this difference of color amongst the same people, and even under the same circumstances. Climate, and climate alone, is the sole cause.

And now to the proof. Instances are adduced, in which individuals, transplanted into another climate than that of their birth, are said to have retained their peculiarities of form and color unaltered, and to have transmitted the same to their posterity for generations. But cases of this kind, though often substantiated to a certain extent, appear to have been much exaggerated, both as to the duration of time ascribed, and the absence of any change. It is highly probable, that the original characteristics will be found undergoing gradual modifications, which tend to assimilate them to those of the new country and situation.

The Jews, however slightly their features may have assimilated to those of other nations amongst whom they are scattered, from the causes already stated, certainly form a very striking example as regards the uncertainty of perpetuity in color.

Descended from one stock, and prohibited by the most sacred institutions from intermarrying with the people of other nations, and yet dispersed, according to the divine prediction, into every country on the globe, this one people is marked with the colors of all; fair in Briton and Germany; brown in France and in Turkey; swarthy in Portugal and in Spain; olive in Syria and in Chaldea; tawny or copper-colored in Arabia and in Egypt;[14] whilst they are “black at Congo, in Africa.”[15]

Let us survey the gradations of color on the continent of Africa itself. The inhabitants of the north are whitest; and as we advance southward towards the line, and those countries in which the sun’s rays fall more perpendicularly, the complexion gradually assumes a darker shade. And the same men, whose color has been rendered black by the powerful influence of the sun, if they remove to the north, gradually become whiter (I mean their posterity), and eventually lose their dark color.[16]

The Portuguese who planted themselves on the coast of Africa a few centuries ago, have been succeeded by descendants blacker than many Africans.[17] On the coast of Malabar there are two colonies of Jews, the old colony and the new, separated by color, and known as the “black Jews,” and the “white Jews.” The old colony are the black Jews, and have been longer subjected to the influence of the climate. The hair of the black Jews are curly, showing a resemblance to the Negro. The white Jews are as dark as the Gipsies, and each generation growing darker.

Dr. Livingstone says,—“I was struck with the appearance of the people in Londa, and the neighborhood; they seemed more slender in form, and their color a lighter olive, than any we had hitherto met.”[18]

Lower down the Zambesi, the same writer says: “Most of the men are muscular, and have large, ploughman hands. Their color is the same admixture, from very dark to light olive, that we saw at Londa.”[19]

In the year 1840, the writer was at Havana, and saw on board a vessel just arrived from Africa some five hundred slaves, captured in different parts of the country. Among these captives were colors varying from light brown to black, and their features represented the finest Anglo-Saxon and the most degraded African.

There is a nation called Tuaricks, who inhabit the oases and southern borders of the great desert, whose occupation is commerce, and whose caravans ply between the Negro countries and Fezzan. They are described by the travellers Hornemann and Lyon.

The western tribes of this nation are white, so far as the climate and their habits will allow. Others are of a yellow cast; others again, are swarthy; and in the neighborhood of Soudan, there is said to be a tribe completely black. All speak the same dialect, and it is a dialect of the original African tongue. There is no reasonable doubt of their being aboriginal.

Lyon says they are the finest race of men he ever saw, “tall, straight, and handsome, with a certain air of independence and pride, which is very imposing.”[20] If we observe the gradations of color in different localities in the meridian under which we live, we shall perceive a very close relation to the heat of the sun in each respectively. Under the equator we have the deep black of the Negro, then the copper or olive of the Moors of Northern Africa; then the Spaniard and Italian, swarthy, compared with other Europeans; the French, still darker than the English, while the fair and florid complexion of England and Germany passes more northerly into the bleached Scandinavian white.[21]

It is well-known, that in whatever region travellers ascend mountains, they find the vegetation at every successive level altering its character, and gradually assuming the appearances presented in more northern countries; thus indicating that the atmosphere, temperature, and physical agencies in general, assimilate, as we approach Alpine regions, to the peculiarities locally connected with high latitudes.

If, therefore, complexion and other bodily qualities belonging to races of men, depend upon climate and external conditions, we should expect to find them varying in reference to elevation of surface; and if they should be found actually to undergo such variations, this will be a strong argument that these external characteristics do, in fact, depend upon local conditions.

Now, if we inquire respecting the physical characters of the tribes inhabiting high tracts in warm countries, we shall find that they coincide with those which prevail in the level or low parts of more northern tracts.

The Swiss, in the high mountains above the plains of Lombardy, have sandy or brown hair. What a contrast presents itself to the traveller who descends into the Milanese territory, where the peasants have black hair and eyes, with strongly-marked Italian, and almost Oriental features.

In the higher part of the Biscayan country, instead of the swarthy complexion and black hair of the Castilians, the natives have a fair complexion, with light blue eyes, and flaxen, or auburn hair.[22]

In the intertropical region, high elevations of surface, as they produce a cooler climate, occasion the appearance of light complexions. In the higher parts of Senegambia, which front the Atlantic, and are cooled by winds from the Western Ocean, where, in fact, the temperature is known to be moderate, and even cool at times, the light copper-colored Fulahs are found surrounded on every side by black Negro nations inhabiting lower districts; and nearly in the same parallel, but on the opposite coast of Africa, are the high plains of Enared and Kaffa, where the inhabitants are said to be fairer than the inhabitants of Southern Europe.[23]

Do we need any better evidence of the influence of climate on man, than to witness its effect on beasts and birds? Æolian informs us that the Eubaea was famous for producing white oxen.[24] Blumenbach remarks, that “all the swine of Piedmont are black, those of Normandy white, and those of Bavaria are of a reddish brown. The turkeys of Normandy,” he states, “are all black; those of Hanover almost all white. In Guinea, the dogs and the gallinaceous fowls are as black as the human inhabitants of the same country.”[25]

The lack of color, in the northern regions, of many animals which possess color in more temperate latitudes,—as the bear, the fox, the hare, beasts of burden, the falcon, crow, jackdaw, and chaffinch,—seems to arise entirely from climate. The common bear is differently colored in different regions. The dog loses its coat entirely in Africa, and has a smooth skin.

We all see and admit the change which a few years produces in the complexion of a Caucasian going from our northern latitude into the tropics.